Stickybottle

Youth (16) beaten by vigilantes after being linked to Dublin bike thefts

Posted on: January 9th, 2017

A Dublin teenager has been bundled into a van and beaten so badly he suffered a broken leg. Gardai believe he was attacked after being linked to bike and car thefts.

Brian Canty

Gardaí in Dublin are issuing a fresh warning to cyclists to securely lock their bikes at home as a wave of thefts have taken place across the city in recent months and one suspect badly beaten.

The teenager who was beaten was said to have been bundled into the back of a van by a group of men in a vigilante-style attack in south Dublin at the beginning of last month.

He sustained a broken leg during the beating, which gardai believe was meted out because those who attacked him believed he was part of a teenage gang stealing high end bikes and cars in the south west area of the capital.

Its report said because the 16-year-old who suffered the broken leg has not made a formal statement to gardai, the investigation has proven very difficult.

Gardai in Crumlin are investigating a teenage gang they believe have been robbing cars and top end bikes for re-sale and those who attacked the 16-year-old did so in the belief he was one of the burglars.

One youth believed to be a member of the teenage burglary gang was arrested over the festive holiday period as gardai believe he was in the process of breaking into a house to take an expensive bike.

Bike theft has become a huge problem in the capital and very often the crimes are not solved and the bikes never found.

In many cases, stolen bikes are spray-painted and put on sale on second-hand websites, or are sold to unsuspecting customers who believe the vendor is the legitimate owner of the bike.

Gardai have also said in the past that because there is no register of bike serial numbers even when bikes are found it is often impossible to track down their owners.

Comments

comments

Where did the name come from?

A stickybottle, put simply, is the knackered cyclist’s best friend.
As a rider is being dropped from a group, the team manager or support worker in a following car holds a bottle out the window to hand it up.
As the handover is taking place, the rider grabs the bottle tight, as does whoever is handing it up, enabling the rider get a good tow and push from momentum of the car.
It’s known as a stickybottle because it appears neither the rider nor the person handing it up is able to take their hand off the bottle; it looks stuck to their hands.
But please don’t try this at home. We’ve been slyly cheating this way all our lives; it takes a while to perfect.